this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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Antiwork
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We're trying to reduce the numbers of hours a person has to work.
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We talk about the end of paid work being mandatory for survival.
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It is "literally" what is being done. I went to work today and "sold my body". That was a use of my time and energy that I can not get back in exchange for money I need to survive.
Arguably labour is intrinsically linked to the body providing the labour BUT selling does suggest handing over property on a more permanent basis. Would you be happier with SpaceNoodle saying they leased their body, given they committed to a set time period that their body could be used for their employer's (lessor's) purposes?
I would make the following recommendations, ordered as beginning with the most important:
To put it simply, just avoid the whole concept.
Selling is surrendering ownership through an exchange, usually exchange for currency.
The statement is vacuous, almost entirely affirmed merely by the meanings of the terms, and lacking any substantive contribution.
Consider, for comparison, the following proposition:
Arguably air travel is intrinsically linked to the aircraft providing transport.
Weren't you having a go at someone for pedantry earlier in this thread...?
Selling one's body is effectively a useless phrase. It had been used pejoratively, historically, to describe sex work. It has no other meaning.
The entire issue should seem very simple.
That doesn't sound like an answer to the question I asked....
Yes I no longer have those cells that were replaced while I was working, if you want to go the ship of Theseus route. That's not what I'm referring to though and you know that.
I understand the intended meaning. My objection is against the insistence that the language is being used literally.
No one literally sells one's body. No one ever, not once, has done it.
The observation should be one that is plain and simple, but somehow there is a prevailing need to pretend that the idiom is any more than a derisive characterization of sex work.
The idiom emerged from a historic context that imparted its meaning, through cultural constructs quite distinct from any that have been asserted in the discussion.
It is simply not the case that just as has been said, at various time, of sex workers, that through their work they sell their bodies, so too do construction workers, or any other kind of worker, also sell their bodies.
Your pedantry is annoying. Language is ever evolving. The saying is perfectly fitting.
Language is evolving, but not every statement about language is accurate.
The ideas that were expressed are not accurate.